so-o-o tired

finals are approaching, both for uh and icaom. a lot of papers to write, projects to complete. last night, i completed a powerpoint presentation on a lesson incorporating technology (i called it "myth-ing links"). it was 61 slides long. it almost killed me! and as soon as that was done, i started writing a 6 page paper on the "canon" of literature, the canon as the symbol of the authoritative culture. i managed to finish most of it this morning, and then had to work on a couple of patients. i raced to uh, got to my etec class, did my presentation. we finished class early, so i was able to use the remaining time to complete the remainder of my paper. then, in educational foundations class, during a somewhat rambling lecture on who knows what (don't get me wrong, i like the instructor...), i finished the powerpoint notes for my acupoints class. after edef ended late (as usual), i raced down to my car way on the other side of the freeway, and then sped off to icaom (acupuncture school). no time for dinner. i got to class, did a pretty decent job with teaching the extra points...

by tomorrow, i am supposed to write four papers, three on exceptional students (gifted and talented), and one on my special education philosophy statement. somehow, it will get done, i suppose. at the moment, i think my brain deserves some down time.

god grant me the ability to cover my procrastinating ass.

Pain

a friend of mine
(whom i have long lost to time's flame,
and can no longer claim,
but who serves as the
only one i could attribute this to)
she once said:
pain is a lonely and sad boy
encircled by a ring of flames.
he sees the world through
flickers and waves
and in eavesdropped laughter
hears a sound that saves
or he thinks it can,
he thinks it can.
but at his approach
voices wilt and melt away
like so much straw
and soon he is where they were
but he is alone
in a blasted empty place
that barely tolerates his touch.
...
"i fell into a burning ring of fire.
i fell down down down as the flames raged higher.
and it burns burns burns
that ring of fire
that ring of fire."
-johnny cash

death of manolette

manolette was, apparently, a great spanish bullfighter. his death, therefore, as sung about in the 10000 maniacs song "death of manolette," signaled the end of a tradition of masculine "immortality." the lyrics go: "the old men with their traditions challenged refrained from tears on the day manolette died."

they say that to be a great bullfighter (actually, i'm the one saying something, someone who has no experience in bullfighting, but who does shovel a lot of bull), you need to be both brave and skilled at misdirection (a great liar). i am not particularly good at either; in fact, i would say i am a great coward, and although i haven't precisely the moral backbone to be an "honest man," i have this inability to tell a good lie under any degree of scrutiny (funny, isn't it, how lying requires a kind of "immoral backbone...").

have you ever read the myth of the minotaur? it's actually somewhat fascinating. the greeks were trying to say something, via "pairings" and lineages, i think: the minotaur was supposedly the offspring of queen pasiphae (king minos's wife), who was so enamored of a bull that she had daedalus invent a costume for her so that she could attract its "attentions." this bestial union formed the monster known as the minotaur... and yet, king minos himself was supposedly the son of a union between europa and zeus, who seduced europa by taking on the form of a white bull. it has even been interpreted that the bull that seduces europa, and the bull that seduces pasiphae are ONE AND THE SAME.

it gets weirder. apparently, pasiphae was the daughter of helios, god of the sun. the image is that even one so high born and glorious as she could be debased and seduced by "taurian lust." note the interconnections between daedalus (fashioner of the cow hide disguise) and his son, icarus, who was seduced by, and slain by, the sun...

there are even further interconnections. theseus slays the minotaur, largely through the help of ariadne, king minos's daughter. ariadne is a weaving figure in greek mythology, not unlike arachne. (in fact, the image of the weaver is central to greek mythology, and, in fact, other mythology systems: women have as their iconic role the weaving of social bonds, for example...) it is no accident that i tie the icarus-daedalus myth to the image of silkworms. theseus's journey through the labyrinth is assisted by ariadne's spool of "red thread."

"red"--> the color used by bullfighters. "red"--> the color of the red thread of ariadne. "red"--> the color of the thread in Japanese folklore that ties lovers together via their pinky fingers. "red"--> the color of Marsilani...

i sometimes get heady and lost in the interconnections... mythology is so ambiguous and rich. a plenitude of interpretations are possible.

Weird Fishes, Radiohead

Common Ground

My Siamese sis,
We’ve a poor prognosis:
even if we could afford it
the delicate procedure
would only offer
a slim chance of survival
apart.

So I’m sorry to say
we’ll always dance clumsy
I step on you
and you step on me.
But maybe someday
together in time
we’ll see if we’ve any
common ground.

Codependence is a dirty word
but if you fell off a cliff
then so would I.
The lean that supports
doesn’t know how to fly.
So cover up the sky
and just struggle
to walk with me.
Trust in this, and only this:
Our common ground.

A poem for Lynn

Love is something you can live with.
And love is something that can live with you.
Forget about figurin’ out, wonderin’ if it’s true.
If it is, then it stays, and it stays you.

Love ain’t no “end all or be all,” kid
‘cuz there’s always a tomorrow that creeps into bed.
what you find there that morning, you can’t betray.
even if that tomorrow’s a rainier or a sunnier day.
Even if that tomorrow’s a rainier or a sunnier day.

So remember this, I tell you, it’s true
love is something you can live with.
and love is something
that can live
with
YOU.

barf barf!

i am so burnt out right now, it's not even funny. i honestly feel no inclination to go into clinic this morning. however, there is a particular patient who is really counting on seeing me, and i can't disappoint. and i suppose the interns need me too, although i often wonder whether they wouldn't be better off without my "guidance." i'm frankly tired of "clinic supervisor guidance," which is this strange mix of "what I would personally do" and "what is theoretically appropriate" and "what the intern wants to do." i suppose i've been pretty "hands off," kind of a liberal teacher, but maybe that's led to things sometimes being somewhat messy...

there are a couple of things i really want to, need to, do, but i haven't the time. the first is write. i have been sneaking in writing in the "empty spaces," but it's just not enough. i would like a long stretch of time just to do this, just to finish marsilani for once and for all. funny thing is, the more i write, the longer the project becomes... but i just have a vision of it being all bound up and ready to be thrown at the world like a pie. or like fresh vomitus...

i am also inspired by my SPED class. funny, i get inspired by this class most of all to really plan my course as a teacher... it gets me to thinking about how to improve the school (acupuncture), and also how i would perform as a secondary english teacher (if that eventuality ever came to pass). we've been looking at some effective schools, schools that have a coherent and positive philosophy, schools that dare to adopt the philosophy of inclusion that is so often given lip service, but only grudgingly complied with... and it really inspires me. how could i/we do that? one thing is for certain, it takes a large amount of reflection and planning. which i would like to do, if i had the time.

projects i am considering include an H.E.R.B.S. project, something to make studying and remembering herbs easier... haven't thought of a real mnemonic yet for that one. here's what the acronym tentatively means (don't laugh): How Easy Remembering Be! Simple! (groan). both grammatically incorrect and pointless (no relation to specifics of herbs).

also revamping, reorganizing the whole clinical process. both for myself and for the school. i tend to have somewhat inchoate goals with regards to patients, hypotheses i formulate while working on them (a lot of times particularly with bodywork). i think i could streamline the process such that i come to the right conclusions sooner, instead of "ruling things out" through habitual rote thinking...

i want to do a parkinson's trial research project with the school clinic, but haven't the time to go over how this would be done (or even if it's desirable). honestly, parkinson's is one of those conditions that are difficult to treat. i mean, we talk about "internal liver wind causing tremors" etc. but i have to say that i am more of a westerner with regards to the etiology and prognosis of the condition: i.e. dysfunctions of the substantia nigra resulting in impaired dopamine production, uptake. in the clinic, we had some really good results on a patient who resembled parkinson's, but was diagnosed with dystonia; however, after a recent mri, things seemed to have stumbled a bit... i am hoping to "get things back on track" with him, so that we can see his smiling optimistic self again.

i wish i wish i wish there was more time. and that i had more energy and discipline to "stay on task!"

willow and aiden are great, they are a source of joy to me. for violin, willow's getting good with her bowing, but she still strays into the "black area" where the bow shouldn't go. and it's still hard to play on only one string, the D string in particular. and she's supposed to finger notes just by muscle memory!?? for me, that's crazy amazing... at least guitars have struts (is that what those are called?) aiden's more motivated about violin, but he still has a hard time holding the bow properly. for both willow and aiden i think i need to get colored stickers...

Revenant

"return," called the dog.

and the weeds snarled the clarity
of the prunings
and stole sun and water and breath
from root, trunk and leaves.
even after all my cares
it happened, the baobabs
broke the pots with their
savage insistence.

"return," yowled the dog,
waiting outside the garage
disturbing the unspayed cats
across the street from
their exponentiation.

and though the woman who cares for me
is nice enough,
i don't know what to call her
or why she stays,
why she calls me in for lunch or dinner
why she's there when i wake when it's still dark
her toothless mouth open and snoring
like the endless rhythm of the sea.

she speaks to me sometimes
mostly in loud barks
but over meals or in the dark
there are moments
when she casts a bridge across
with her eyes and her hand
on my forearm
tells me things
that i can't understand
that i can tell she wants me to understand
i nod and smile
(she's such a nice lady)
but i know it's not enough.

"return!" pined the dog,
and this time i heard
the scritch scritch of his
paws on the front door.

Bjork, "all is full of love"

Lafcadio Hearn's "In Ghostly Japan"

i discovered an interesting book, "In Ghostly Japan" by Lafcadio Hearn. actually, i'd heard of Lafcadio Hearn before. supposedly, he wrote "kwaidan," a collection of ghost stories that is famous not just amongst foreigners, but among the japanese themselves. it appears that Lafcadio not only translated the japanese mythos (superstitions, etc.) to foreigners, but to the japanese too.

anyway, it seems at times that fate draws me to certain books. i looked in the chapter headings, and found a chapter entitled "silkworms." the chapter began with a very intriguing chinese saying: "the silkworm moth eyebrows of a woman are the axe to the wisdom of man."

it's not in those words, obviously, but "moth-eaten" is intended to be about a similar seduction. and the central imagery is the moth, the silkworm moth.

"he sang a bit of a song to me once," she said, looking away. when she looked back, there was a warm smile on her face, as though haunted by a memory. "under the milky way by the church. ever heard it?"

he nodded a slight nod.

she nodded in kind, then turned away again, looking on into the distance. "he only sang one line, and it was only so he could make sure i knew what song he was talking about. but it was so beautiful, his voice. it was like- it was like he meant the song. like maybe the song was meant for him."

the silence that followed was uncomfortable. he wasn't quite sure how to respond, uncertain whether responding was the right thing to do.

it was in awkward moments like this that his eyes tended to stray, searching madly for patterns to attach to, to cling to, to have meaning, to pretend symmetry and harmony and order and most of all, control.

the darkness of the night sky, even illumined by the moon, wouldn't oblige him. there were no lines to trace, only vague forms with shadowy outlines. in fact, she herself was nothing more than a shadow, a form of grey and blue shapes that shifted and sighed like a cloud. his eyes slid away from her, blurred into her, and he felt himself drowning in instability.

finally, in a meek and breathless voice, he asked the question he dreaded to hear the answer to, asked it in the guise of a statement. "So you miss him then."

Rod Serling, telling it like it is- censorship.

on edge

it contemplates you, you know.

as you sit there watching
the ground an inch before
dropping away to the
end of the world-
where you think you're alone
where you think no one's been
where it's just you (you think)
pitted up against the line
that holds everything in
where you believe you are
the only opaque thing
in a transparent world.

it watches you
with a grin that's about to crack up
as the waves crash
and seem to shake your feet
you feel sublime-
the thundering of your soul-
but it's actually the laugh about
to break.

and when you've gone
after your little half hour
of communion with yourself
or with nature or with god-
whatever-
when you've driven off in your
little car
back along black ribbons
back to your tidy
wrapped up little life-

how it laughs and laughs and laughs.

the test changes everything

you wanted me to wait for you
and so i did
i waited and waited and waited
and as thoughts (despite themselves)
turned to dreams
and as dreams turned
to the disappointment of waking
you finally showed up
in your party dress
all perky and smirky.

i rubbed my bleary eyes.

don't get me wrong.
i was happy to see you.

but when you said
you were just playing
hard to get-
well.

the test changes everything.
i may have proved myself
jumped through the hoops
all seventy thousand seconds of them
but now i'm too tired.

an insomniac who
waits for the sun to rise
can't really "get up,"
now, can he?

roll me over
i've another dream
to get wrong.
and you've
another test
to take.

Orbital, Oi!

Orbital, Illuminate

funny

Since people liked the "creepy" image, here's another ("funny"), again, sent by Shari. The old version, I thought, was much more entertaining, but this is pretty funny anyway. As Shari recommends, turn the sound up!

http://www.1-click.jp/

it's raining out.

i love the rain. they say it clarifies the atmosphere, it's like a shower in a fart-laden bathroom. and maybe it does, and maybe it doesn't. but in a way, i think that it does, i don't know, emotionally? i always thought that when it stormed, and stormed hard, then it was the world showing us how it really, truly is. all that sunshine crap is good every now and then, like a saccharin snack, but the world in a storm is REAL. see the concern on everyone's face. everyone united by this kind of quiet anxiety that (don't deny it) a feeling somewhat like excitement.

i remember (it is one of my few concrete memories of real warm parental affection)
... one day, my brother and i were riding our bikes home, and there was a really horrific rainstorm... and it was funny, i actually FELT cold, and pretended that i was frozen, ala C3po from star wars, my arms all bent 90 degrees. my jaw felt rigid from the shivering. and for some reason, my ma was home. she had us take a warm shower, and gave us warm cocoa. i swear, my mother is a great mother, but she NEVER did stuff like that (or i guess i would have remembered more). it was the best feeling in the world.

maybe it's because of little memories like that that i actually like rainstorms... they are sometimes the only times when people actually seem to unite in care for one another. the "safe" sunny days are for "fayerweather" friends, etc. give me a storm any day.

the poign(or)ant

my my
how is it that
you walk the barebacked porcupine
without a flinch, tear, or whine
quills quivered in your sole?

well well well
big deal, slings and arrows
you've outrageous fortune
I can't believe that ridiculous grin
after what you've been through.

I've got to ask, what are you
what are you made of?

(and what am i?
and how could you
and how dare you
HOW DARE YOU?)

hey hey hey
i would've done it too, and first
but it seems something's amiss
I've cholelithiasis
a doctor's signature.
See? No gall to spare.

(and, f*** it,
I feel the world
more than you.
I FEEL the WORLD
MORE than YOU.)

erythro / y r other?

the pain(t) wants out:
wants eyes to stop from
drifting cross the traffic
there is something alive here
you'll run over it if
you'll run into it if
you'll see.

before the color freezes
in moments living crawls
across the surface of the moon
rover, courseless, coursing, slow
in too much air to breathe
in too much air to breathe
too much.
---
there are other fish in the sea
but the tide has left
what the sun will steal away.

evaporate
and dream of the
other fish in the sea.

there was one other time when someone touched his face in that way.

it happened when he was 12 years old, and his cousin from Japan was 11. both he and she were "encumbered" by younger siblings, him his younger sister, and she her younger (and, as it would turn out, mentally challenged) brother. but the "youngsters" were occupying themselves with the television in the other room, and while they were an open doorway away, they might as well have been in another world.

he didn't know why, but he had been lying on the hotel floor, absorbing the smell of a strange room in a strange place. the ceiling above was dark (the lights of the bedroom were off), and his face no doubt looked strange from above, a landscape shadowed by the scant light streaming in through the doorway. she was on the bed itself, bathed in darkness, and he wasn't certain of it, but it seemed as though the silhouette of her head, creeping over the edge of the bed, held eyes intent and quietly curious.

he had closed his eyes for just a moment it seemed, and then he felt it. a touch like warm rain, tracing the contours of his face, running across the high places (the summit of his nose), draining into the valleys (his canthuses, his mentolabial groove), ending, and staying, on the kissing point of his lips. there, the fingertips (for fingertips it was) pressed softly but insistently, as though desiring entrance.

he opened his eyes then, and broke his lips into a nervous smile. he couldn't tell clearly (her head just a silhouette), but he imagined he saw her expression, not smiling in kind, but simply watching, waiting, like a cat, curious...

so as other fingertips traced the same lines, in the same way, he instantly remembered that half-forgotten time, that strange seduction before he or she knew what anything meant...

Sulphur Dioxide symptoms

No one is reporting this, but ever since the recent seismic farts of SO2, there seem to have been a surge of inexplicable health problems cropping up in the populace. Of course, the asthma and sinus issues, but also eye INFECTIONS, and, oddly enough (and this is purely conjecture) cluster headaches that resemble semispinalis capitis (muscle) strains (a band around the head). My wife Lynn is suffering from these intense headaches (all on a day when she SHOULD be happy, relaxed), and there was a woman who came into the clinic with the EXACT SAME SYMPTOMATOLOGY. We could attribute this to coincidence, or we could try to theorize a tie. Perhaps a virus. But a more probable cause (although the tie between SO2 and specific types of headaches is tenuous at best) is the VOG... No one reports this in the news... I'm not sure why.

spit of worms

the spitting image of him
silken threads drawn on her skin
the metaphorical sin
is me, it's me, not him.

before I grew the scaled wing
and flew the flame that bade me sing(e)
a forgotten reinterpreting
was me, is me, not him.

give aways to the datalist

Clues:
1) Mr. O and Mr. X: O and X are the symbols used to play that game of futility, tic tac toe (also symbols for hugs and kisses). O means inclusion, "oneness." X means pinpointing analysis, and by extension, exclusion, differentiation, classification. O is childlike, but often destructive in his need to "incorporate." X is viciously intelligent, with a natural aptitude for the occasional homicidal diversion.

2) The Ox-herding Pictures. This is a Zen "picture story" for the attainment of enlightenment. Ten pictures, in sequence, depicting a boy's search for, taming of, and forgetting of, the OX, representative of MIND. #8 depicts nothing but a circle; #9 depicts a nature scene ("return to the source"); #10 depicts Jizo, the bodhidharma that watches over the lost children, fat and generous.

3) The monkey thought it was all in fun.

4) The Monk, 'e thought it was "All in Fun."

5) The Monk, 'e thought it was "All En Fun."

6) "All En Fun" is an anagram for "Unfallen."

7) The key to translating the "Datalist" (Daedalus) is a poem written by the "Monk," with a reference (explicit or not) to the Daedalus/Icarus myth, a poem called "Unfallen."

Upon opening the wax sealed envelope, there emerged a sound, a tinny recording of a familiar nursery song:

"All around the mulberry bush,
The monkey chased the weasel
The monkey thought it was all in fun
The Monk, 'e thought it was All En Fun
The MONK, 'E THOUGHT it was ALL EN FUN
POP! Goes the weasel."

For a moment, Mr. O, Mr. X and myself stared dumbfounded, confused. It was Mr. X who finally broke the silence.

"Wot, that it?" he sniped. With his exquisitely manicured fingertips, he held a corner of the envelope, and shook it gingerly, as though expecting a spider to fall out. Nothing emerged. He glanced sidelong at Mr. O, then laughed a shivering kind of laugh. "An' here I was, expectin' the whole lot o' us to die in a cloud o'- wot was it called? Sarah gas?"

I cleared my throat nervously. "Sarin," I corrected, and then winced. What was I doing? Conversing with my would-be abductors?

"Eggs-actly," snipped Mr. X, punctuating his concurrence with a point of his thin and precise index finger. "Sarin. But instead of all o' us kickin' and sickin'-" and here, he grinned with his polished pearl knife-y teeth, "it'll just be you."

Eventually, it would become apparent.
The decay of his teeth, the dull and brittle character of his hair, the shadows under his eyes.
But while something beat within, and while there was somewhere to be, and something to do, he would be the bridge across the gaps, his tired eyelids would flutter open like the wings of a migrating bird, knowing that to sink and rest would mean plunging headlong, and forever, into a deep blue from which there was no return...
Tempting, that deep blue (and funny how that word "tempt" implied "time"), but it would have to wait for another day to claim him.
It would have to wait for the eventuality of his apparency, the inevitability of his collapsing holographic illusion of a life.

My ETEC project

We had to make a short (1.5 minute) video on any topic "relevant" to university students. Here is my project, done on the Mac with iMovie (MACS RULE, BTW)...

A "creepy image", sent from Shari

Check this out!



http://cubo.cc/



I don't find it so creepy, she's actually kind of cute. But the red eyes? Maybe after hours of filming, your eyes would be red too.

Response to Critique of Naruto Theory, also more theories

As you can see from this page from Chapter 386: the Mangekyou Sharingan REQUIRES killing one's friends. Thus, it cannot simply be acquired by means of vigorous training, as the critique of my theory implied. HOWEVER, this image does seem to invalidate my previous theory regarding the identity of Pain. I said that Pain had something to do with the younger brother of Madara Uchiha; we know that Madara stole his nameless younger brother's eyes, but I wasn't clear about his fate AFTER that. But it appears that, according to Itachi, that brother died as well ("And killed their siblings to make its power permanent!"). Thanks for the thoughtful critique! While I'm in Naruto mode, here are a few other theories: 1) I theorize that the reason Itachi was so easily defeated was that he didn't really want to fight his younger brother. He was "put up" to the task by Madara Uchiha. Thus, Itachi lost despite his superiority; his final gesture, the poke to the forehead that used to be an expression of "sibling affection" (?) was actually sincere, and was Itachi's way of telling Sasuke that, in the end, he actually did love his younger brother... Madara Uchiha, meanwhile, set the two brothers against each other, not caring who would win. Whoever did survive would be the next candidate for an "eye transplant." That, apparently, is where Madara and Zetsu are headed next. Before the black Amaterasu flames can consume Itachi's corpse and Sasuke's exhausted form, the two Akatsuki members will show up and steal Sasuke (AND Itachi's ring!!! Remember, that's what Zetsu always does, as a hunter-nin!)... 2) I STILL think Madara had something to do with Pain's creation. Of course, it is said that the Rinneigan originated with some mysterious "Sage of the Six Paths," but why is Pain subordinate to Madara then? It's interesting that "Rinneigan" seems to be translated as "Reincarnation" Eye... a kind of Buddhist theme...